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The usual view of the development of the laryngeal contrast in final position is that final fortition occurred first, followed by apocope of final schwa which triggered the loss of the fortition rule (e.g. Hock 1991 and references). Hence originally alternating 'Wääg' 'way', which leveled the lenis from the plural, versus non-alternating 'ewëgg' 'away', where the original fortis is retained.

However, I encountered a contrary hypothesis in a footnote in Keller 1961 (_German Dialects_, p 47, n 1), where he suggests that fortition never took place, but instead that short vowels were lengthened before final lenes. In that case, the contrast would only be relevant after long vowels (since there was no concomitant shortening of long vowels before fortes).

I don't know how Keller would account for forms like 'ewëgg', but conceivably a few isolated words with short vowels could somehow be re-analyzed with final fortes, rather than undergo lengthening. I don't really believe this scenario, but if this has been accepted by a number of historical linguists working on the subject, I need to know. Any German dialectologists out there who know of discussions along these lines?